Move over Woodward & Bernstein, Sarah Carter is in the house

Media continues to lose credibility with audiences, readers

Real journalists should have the credibility to earn their respect, not demand it. Americans are wising up to MSNBC, CNN, Yahoo! News, ABC News, and other outlets’ long list of biased or untrue stories. Pitifully, their articles and analysis fall apart upon minimal scrutiny. When the mainstream media subject themselves to such consequential inaccuracies as have, they must to take responsibility. Their errors will not just fade away.

Sarah A. Carter, uncovering possibly the biggest political news story of our time, (Sarahacarter.com)

Today, President Donald Trump, on live television and in a tweet, tore into CNN and NBC for their fake reporting that he would “give teachers guns” to combat the growing epidemic of school shootings in America.

“I never said ‘give teachers guns’ like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC.” tweeted Trump, referring to the listening session he held with high school teachers and students on Wednesday.

“What I said was to look at the possibility of giving ‘concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience – only the best,” he followed up. “Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!”

Several major studies and polls shows that 88 to 93 percent of the media’s coverage of President Donald Trump has been “hostile.” A recent Suffolk University poll reveals 50 percent of their respondents have a bad opinion of the media. Only 37 percent have a favorable impression of the media, while Trump’s State of the Union address in January, coupled with tax benefits and higher paychecks in February, show 52 percent of voters now approve of his actions.

Today, the Watergate scandal of the 1970s is negligible compared to recent reporting by international award-winning investigative reporter Sara A. Carter. Move over Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein! While Sara Carter’s storieshave ranged from national security, terrorism, immigration and front line coverage of the wars in Middle East, her work has uncovered perhaps some of the most incredible reports in American political history.

HOSTILE MEDIA

President Trump meeting with U.S. Vietnam Veterans in Vietnam, Nov. 2017 (White House photo by D. Myles Cullen)

I realize that media outlets and journalists can make mistakes, including me. But my concern are for those who do not make proper corrections or take responsibility for their mistakes. My litmus test for deciding what is a ‘fake news’ organization is when their sites make little efforts toward accuracy and often report entirely fictional stories. Some try to get by, or justify not being a puppet and controlled media outlet, by trying to release factual news with a mix in some fake stories for propaganda purposes.

Several major studies and polls shows that 88 to 93 percent of the media’s coverage of President Donald Trump has been “hostile.” A recent Suffolk University poll reveals 50 percent of their respondents have a bad opinion of the media. Only 37 percent have a favorable impression of the media, while Trump’s State of the Union address in January, coupled with tax benefits and higher paychecks in February, show 48 to 52 percent of voters now approve of his actions.

PULITZER PRIZE REPORTING

Journalist Jack Anderson (left). Jack Dennis (right) (NL)

In college I had a chance to meet and have lunch with Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Jack Anderson. My Texas State University journalism professor, Jeff Henderson introduced me to Anderson as “a bit of a muckraker, a rebel-rouser investigative reporter who runs circles around others” (I actually won many awards as a columnist, reporter and editor, including the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Press Association Investigator of the Year Award back in 1976).

During lunch, I was intrigued listening to Anderson’s advice and the telling some of his experiences. We “connected” and he invited me to get in touch with him as he was particularly interested in information I was developing concerning Fred Carrasco, the most powerful and deadliest drug lord in the United States at the time.

Nixon resigns! (NL)

Two Nixon administration conspirators, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, admitted under oath they plotted to poison Anderson on orders from senior White House aide Charles Colson. They met with a CIA operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging. The plan never occurred when the plotters were arrested for the Watergate break-in. Nixon had long been angry with Anderson, blaming Anderson’s election eve story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon’s brother for Nixon’s loss of the 1960 presidential election.

WHERE IS THE CONFIDENCE IN AMERICAN MEDIA?

Since 1972 Gallup has been asking “In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media—when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly—a great deal, a fair amount, not very much or none at all?” The highest level of trust for the media was in 1976 when it was up to 72%. Good investigative journalism, as evidenced by the Watergate scandal and Vietnam reporting, gave Americans confidence in the news. Internet blogs and non-mainstream news outlets are changing the lay of the land for traditional news organizations by calling them out when they are biased or agenda driven.

A Harvard study found that CNN’s and NBC’s coverage of Trump was negative 93 percent of the time during his first 100 days in office. The New York Times’s coverage in the same study was 87 percent negative, while The Washington Post’s was 82 percent in that direction.

FAKE NEWS IS REAL

Frankly, millions of Americans are tired of these media outlets demanding our respect. They play the game of political correctness, implying that one must be ignorant and not worthy of patriotism to reject or discredit their reporting.

Here are worthy examples:

NBC

This month NBC released an “exclusive report,” with the headline “Russians Penetrated US Voter Systems, Top US Official Says.” The Department of Homeland security confirmed that the NBC report was “false” and “irresponsible.”

NBC Fake News (NL)

“Recent NBC reporting has misrepresented facts and confused the public with regard to Department of Homeland Security and state and local government efforts to combat election hacking,” Cybersecurity and Communications Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra indicated in the statement. “First off, let me be clear: we have no evidence – old or new – that any votes in the 2016 elections were manipulated by Russian hackers.”

“NBC News continues to falsely report my recent comments on attempted election hacking – which clearly mirror my testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last summer – as some kind of “breaking news,” incorrectly claiming a shift in the administration’s position on cyber threats,” she said.

NBC News hired Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as a “special correspondent” for a salary of $600,000.

NBC’s morning-show stars Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose were released over allegations of sexual misconduct. Lauer’s salary was estimated at $25 million.

First Lady Melania Trump with guest Preston Spark at 2018 State of the Union. (White House photo by Andrea Hanks)

In October 2017, NBC reported Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had threatened to step down. But Tillerson responded that it was fake news “because I have never considered leaving this post. I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. This is what I don’t understand about Washington. Again, I’m not from this place. But the places I come from, we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense. And it is intended to do nothing but divide people, and I’m just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration.”

“Liberals were not being terribly alarmist before the election, but now there’s this nonstop sense of emergency,” says Judith Donath, a faculty fellow at The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. “You don’t really want to stop and smell the flowers, because you think that if I miss something, disaster might happen.”

A disturbing example of fake news was when NBC and CNN were caught lying about the George Zimmerman tape. NBC had edited a 911 phone call between Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, and the police dispatcher. Their version made him sound like a racial profiler.

One of the most troubling reports from NBC was their November 2016 Dateline story that showed a 57 second video of a crash showing how some GM trucks could easily explode. GM later proved that NBC had rigged the truck with their consultants setting off miniature rockets beneath the truck seconds before their staged crash. Former NBC News president Reuven Frank acknowledge that, ”this is the worst black eye NBC News has suffered in my experience, which goes back to 1950.”

ABC

Christians are protesting ABC’s The View and ABC News’s bigoted reporting and analysis against their faith. (News Legit)

Chief anchor George Stephanopoulos had to apologize on air in 2015 after it was revealed he made donations ($75,000 worth) to the Clinton Foundation without disclosing those donations to his employer or viewers. He was donating to the Clinton’s while covering them or their foundation for the news division. His salary is estimated to be $15 million.

A low came when ABC News suspended their renowned reporter Brian Ross for his false report that Trump had instructed his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, to contact Russian officials during the presidential race in 2016. The report was false.

ABC drew fire from critics when it was discovered they will pay Clinton activist Katy Perry $25 million to be a judge for just one season of a refurbished “American Idol.”

The network joined The New York Times, CBS, NBC, CNN, The Washington Post and others in reporting that before FBI Director Jim Comey was fired by President Trump, he had requested that the Justice Department assign more resources to the FBI’s probe into Russia’s election meddling. The understood allegation was that Trump fired Comey to keep him from discovering the truth about Trump’s involvement with Russia. All these reports were false.

CNN

Popular social media meme. (Facebook)

In June 2017, three correspondents from CNN were forced to resign after their fake news about a pre-inaugural meeting between Russia and the Trump team had to be retracted. Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, and Lex Haris were identified as those who resigned after their article appeared on CNN’s website,, but was removed the following evening.

CNN apologized to Anthony Scaramucci, a Trump transition team member, who was falsely reported to be involved in a meeting with a Russian investment fund member.

CNN reported that former FBI Director James Comey would dispute Trump’s claim “that he was told he is not under investigation.” Comey confirmed that claim in congressional testimony.

Truth or CNN?

Even more evidence against CNN’s fake news bias was revealed in video footage supplied by Project Veritas showing a Sr. Producer admitting to their deceptive reporting. John Bonifield is caught on tape saying the CNN narrative is mostly made up about Russian collusion with the Trump administration, stating, “I haven’t seen any good enough evidence to show that the President committed a crime.”

Bonifield said, “I know a lot of people don’t like him and they’d like to see him get kicked out of office…I think the President is probably right to say, like, look you are witch hunting me…you have no real proof.”

President Donald Trump quote at 2018 State of Union address (White House)

CNN was one of several establishment media channels that spread fake news about a study on Russian influence efforts in the United States. CNN cited the study, from the Oxford Internet Institute, to show that fake news targeted swing states during election week. It later was proven these news outlets omitted facts and mislead readers toward false narratives.

CNN was one of the first outlets to indicate the ill-reputed report on the anti-Trump dossier was initially funded by a Republican donor. False again. The opposition research firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, had contracted with Republican donor Paul Singer for research on candidates including Trump, but that was unrelated to the controversial dossier.

First Lady Melania Trump in China in Nov. 2017 (Andrea Hanks)

During President Trump’s visit to Japan last year, CNN instigated two lies about the president. The first falsehood was that Trump stupid for feeding Japanese koi fish by peevishly pouring out his entire box of fish food. CNN zoomed in close on Trump while he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were feeding the fish, giving the impression to show the president making an embarrassing mistake. The full video, however, showed that Trump followed Prime Minister’s lead and only scattered the contents from his box after his host had done the same.

In the second false narrative that CNN spread during Trump’s Japan visit, the network took the president’s words out of context to make him appear unaware of the fact that Japan makes cars in the United States.

CNN bungled another hyped “bombshell” when they reported that Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump campaign had received advanced access to stolen emails published by WikiLeaks. The story was debunked later that day.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visit with Maddy Wilford and her family. Maddy was shot at Douglas High School in Florida. (Shealah Craighead)

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Associated Press

White House photo

On February 17, 2017,AP released a reporting claiming “the Trump administration considered a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border.” The story went viral and was reported by The Boston Globeran the story, CBS, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times to name just a few. The story was turned out to be false, but I have never seen a retraction or correction.

New York Times

State of the Union quote from President Trump 2018. (White House)

They were forced to issue a correction after falsely claimed on the front page that the Trump administration had hidden a climate report. The report was already publicly available at the time.

Paul Krugman wrote on the day of President Trump’s historic victory that the U.S. “economy would never recover.” The DOW has been reaching record highs and the economy is recovering.

Washington Post

President Trump and First Lady at NRG Stadium in Houston, Sept. 2, 2017 (Official White House photo by Andrea Hanks)

Post reporter David Weigel was caught posting a photo of empty seats in a tweet falsely portraying empty seats at the Pensacola Bay Center for President Trump’s speech there last year. The photo was taken before the venue was filled up.

Last April, the Post’s Daniel Drezner, eventually issued an apology to Jeff Sessions after tweeting that the Attorney General Sessions “described illegal immigrants as ‘filth.’” It wasn’t true.

In May, theyreported that Trump’s Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “threatened to resign” after a “narrative” materialized that he was behind the firing of FBI Director James Comey. The story was not true.

Literally every facet of last December’s Washington Post was false about their story that Russian hackers had hacked into the “U.S. electricity grid” through a Vermont utility. Russia hacked into the U.S. electric grid to deprive Americans of heat during winter (WashPost).

ESPN

In September ESPN commentator Jemele Hill deemed Trump as a “white supremacist” in a tweet.

CBS

One word says it all: Rathergate.

First Lady Melania Trump visits children at hospital in France. July 13, 2017 (White House photo by Andrea Hanks)

Former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson called it the “most-well known example. It wasn’t considered fake news at the time, but it fits the definition today — that is when the forged documents were used for Dan Rathers’ 60 Minutes IIreport on George Bush’s Vietnam era military service. I was at CBS at the time, and what qualifies that story as something other than just a mistake is that there were red flags, like handwriting experts who could not validate the documents, but it still made it on air.”

NEWSWEEK

Newsweek ceased print publication with the December 31, 2012, issue and transitioned to an all-digital format. Their reporting and bias became so mundane that they reported that Polish first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda did not shake Trump’s hand. A video that appeared to capture the missed handshake went viral on social media at the time.

Trump knock out (White House)

I finally gave up on Newsweek after their May 9, 2016 report that American interrogators had desecrated a Koran at Guantanamo Bay. Riots broke out all over Afghanistan, crowds attacked government and aid-organization offices, and many were killed. Anti-American demonstrations broke out from North Africa to Indonesia. Their editor, Mark Whitaker later wrote, “We regret that we got any part of our story wrong and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.”

In January 2018, the Newsweek Manhattan office was searched by investigators with a warrant, and 18 non-operational computer servers were confiscated. Reports indicate this could be the result of a probe on Newsweek finances.

Real Headlines from Mainstream Media

One of the most laughable news outlets is Yahoo! News, which has a tendency to load their front page website with some of the most outlandishly liberal news. Besides Yahoo! Here are some real headlines from the mainstream media:

First Lady Melania Trump embraces a young child while visiting the Hadassah Medical Organization facility, Monday, May 22, 2017, in Jerusalem. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

First Lady Melania Trump hands an award to a recipient during the International Women of Courage Award Ceremony, Wednesday, March 29, 2017, at the Department of State, Harry Truman Building, in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

Update:

Regarding the erroneous reporting of some mainstream media outlets today, President Trump also tweeted:

“History shows that a school shooting lasts, on average, 3 minutes. It takes police & first responders approximately 5 to 8 minutes to get to site of crime. Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive. GREAT DETERRENT!”

The president continued: “If a potential “sicko shooter” knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there…problem solved. Must be offensive, defense alone won’t work!”